Through the Looking-Glass
by Banana Kisses
Summary: Over three centuries after the Lunar Revolution, Artemisia is a gleaming hub of history and culture to be experienced by both Lunars and Earthen. The palace is no longer home to the royal family, but is now a grand hotel. Meredith Davis, a writer of fun ghost stories, insists on staying in Suite 312, said to house unknown horrors and the dark history of the Blackburn Dynasty.
1. Part 1

The netscreen flashed jovially, and the inhuman voice lilted.

 _Would you like to relive this hour again?_

She jumped as she turned her head. A noose hanged from the ceiling where had previously been nothing. The rope swung slightly, inviting.

 _Or would you like to check out early?_

* * *

The artificial sun blared down over the sprawling city of Artemisia, fluffy clouds floating across the dome. Today, like every day, was incredibly busy, people swarming the streets like bugs. The city was a living organism, trading and laughing and conversing and shouting at others to get out of the way. It had been Luna's capital, once upon a time, but now it was the largest tourist attraction on the moon, with countless museums and historical sites from when the monarchy still ruled over the country.

Meredith walked out from the AR-2 Interplanetary Spaceport, carrying nothing but a small suitcase and a leather bag at her hip. The air was slightly stale compared to the spacious woods where she lived. She had no desire to leave Earth for the rock in the sky, but she was here for the book. She had to leave glacial Scotland behind to stay in the subject of her most hyped novel yet: the Grand Artemisia Hotel.

Word of letter, is how she heard about it. Someone had left her an anonymous postcard with a gorgeous picture of the lunar city, with ' _Don't stay in 312'_ scrawled on the back. At first, she had thrown it away, but she found herself constantly mulling over the cryptic message. A hot-headed mule, Meredith was never one to deny a challenge.

Booking the room proved to be the first of many. The staff had refused at first, stating that the room was unavailable, but Meredith always had the laws and regulations up her sleeve, as a consequence of her profession. This hadn't been the first time that the owners of whatever haunted location had been reluctant to accommodate the writer.

Since the room was vacant and Meredith had the means to pay, being successful enough in Europe in America to afford to rent a royal suite, they were in no position to deny her request. _The room has such a sordid past, and we don't want to responsible for your death_ , they told Meredith. She rolled her eyes and insisted further. Her tongue of steel had pushed them over in a matter of minutes, but they still insisted that she speak with the head manager of the hotel before being checked in.

As such, she barely got through the main gates before she saw Diana Glampers standing in the courtyard, obviously waiting for her. Tall with hard-looking eyes, the woman certainly looked like she could beat out Meredith in any debate. Her heart sank. _I should've brought the lawyer after all,_ she thought. Too late now. She lifted her head up and met the hotel manager's gaze. A sense of coyness made her smile. The woman was a fool if she thought she could put another roadblock between Meredith and Suite 312.

"Miss Davis," Glampers said, dipping her head in greeting. She held out a hand, smiling.

Meredith returned the nod and took Diana's hand. "Is there a problem?"

Diana looked around the courtyard as if it could speak for her. She looked pained.

"Mrs. Glampers?"

The manager sighed. "Miss Davis, could you…speak with me in my office, please?"

Meredith pursed her lips. As much as it was an inconvenience, Diana's unease added to the ominous tone that Meredith's readers expected from her novels. She really _was_ afraid of Suite 312. While Meredith could understand that most people would be uncomfortable with staying in the quarters of Luna's most infamous tyrant, the outright terror was, all in all, ridiculous.

Oh, she had heard the stories—in fact, she had a copy of the room's entire history of her portscreen. Thirty-three deaths since the hotel's opening in the year 159, thirty years after the end of the Lunar Invasion and the abolishment of the monarchy. Twenty suicides, eight heart attacks, four strokes and even a couple that had been driven to kill each other during their two-hour stay. But Meredith wasn't bothered. She had stayed in infamous castles and graveyards and even a 'possessed' church, and had come out without a scratch or even a spook. Good material for her books, though.

"Of course, Mrs. Glampers."

Diana, the good host, reached for Meredith's bag. "Allow me."

"I'm fine with it," the woman said. "Nothing but a change of clothes and a toothbrush." She patted her briefcase. "And my port. Can't go anywhere without it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Meredith said. "I'm already wearing my lucky shirt." She smiled. "It's the one with the ghost repellent."

Diana shook her head. She looked weary, her black hair seeming to slip out of her immaculate bun. "Very good, Miss Davis. Follow me."

In the vast courtyard, the manager had been tentative, but in her marble-and-stone office, she seemed to gain assurance again. The room was decorated in the signature style of the Blackburn Dynasty. The furniture was mostly glass, the walls covered in white wallpaper with gold designs swirling like soup. Regolith pillars held up the ceiling.

Although it was flashy, it wasn't nearly as gaudy as the lobby, which had nearly blinded Meredith when she walked in. Following behind Diana, she wondered what the ballroom was like, if it was as obnoxiously lavish.

As the manager slipped behind her desk, Meredith's eye caught on the sleek port resting on the top, the cover of her latest book displayed on the screen. She smirked. _My host has been doing some research of her own, I see._

"Would like a drink, Miss Davis?" Glampers held up a glass bottle, and just from the label Meredith could tell that it was some fancy lunar wine. "It's _Red Tsuki,_ from last year. Some of the finest."

Meredith waved her hand. "Oh, no thank you. I'm not particularly fond of water."

Glampers narrowed her eyes, as if Meredith had insulted her personally.

 _Stars, Lady. Who cares that much about wine?_ Meredith grinned and put her hands behind her back. "But I could go for a margarita, or little tequila…don't get me wrong, I simply prefer heavier things."

"Lucinda, may I please have a _Martian Mix_ brought to my office, please? Within five minutes, if possible," Glampers spoke into the port on her desk, tapping her fingers on the surface.

"So, I'm assuming I've been brought here so you can talk me out of my desire to stay in such a wonderful room?" Meredith sighed, digging out her port. "If so, then do you mind if I record this conversation?"

Glampers' lips pursed even more. She gestured to a lush chair placed right in front of her. "Please, have a seat."

Meredith sat down, and as soon as her butt made contact with the chair, a lovely woman walked through the door and placed a beautiful-looking drink on the armrest without so much as a word. Meredith dipped her head, turning on her port and activating the _record_ function.

"Thank you, Lucinda," Glampers called out. She turned to face Meredith, placing her port in front of her. "This is quite an interesting read. A little…basic at times, but competently put together."

"Do you have a point?"

"You're sensitive about these, aren't you?" Glampers asked.

"Sensitive, yes. Vulnerable, no. If you're hoping to persuade me out of your hotel by criticizing my books—"

"No, not at all. I was curious, that's why I downloaded them two days ago, when you first appeared with your...request."

"It was a demand, not a request. Still is. You heard Mr. Robertson; Interplanetary law, applicable to both Earth and Luna, forbids you to deny me a specific room, if I request that specific room and the room is vacant. And 312 is vacant. 312 is _always_ vacant these days."

But Glampers was not to be diverted from the subject of Meredith's last three books all just yet. She flipped a couple pages on the screen, the cover blaring out brightly. Purple sold scary books better than any other colour, Meredith had been told.

"I didn't get a chance to dip into these until earlier this morning," Glampers said. "I've been quite busy. I usually am. This is the biggest hotel in the Solar System, and we run at ninety per cent occupancy and usually a problem comes through the front door with every guest."

"Like me."

"Suite 312 has been closed off to the public for a reason. We haven't rented it out in twenty years, even to the powerful and influential guests."

"The room of a former evil queen is the perfect subject for one of my pleasant little stories. I think I have more justification than any high official." Meredith knew she was full of it, but better to be cocky than insecure. It usually helped, when getting your way, to act as if you know what you're doing.

"That room is currently being used as storage for artefacts that have been known to cause trouble in the past."

"Oh, evil paintings and junk. You're really convincing me now."

"Would you please stop being so rude?"

Meredith flipped her red hair, bearing a shit-eating grin. "No," she said, "I don't believe in ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties. I think it's good there are no such things, because I don't believe there's any non-denominational _star god_ that can protect us from them, either. That's what I believe, but I've kept an open mind from the very start. I may never win a prize for investigating some backwater cathedral in Germany, but I would have written fairly about any ghost if they had shown up."

Glampers said something, only a single word, but too low for Meredith to make it out.

"Excuse me?"

"I said no. I won't let you do this." Glampers looked at her almost apologetically.

Meredith sighed. "Why don't we leave this for another day, Mrs. Glampers? I'll just go on upstairs and brush my teeth. Perhaps I'll even see Queen Levana herself materialize behind me in the bathroom mirror."

Diana frowned, standing up suddenly. "If you think that I care at all about your survival or sanity, Miss Davis, you are sorely mistaken," she seethed. "I just don't want to have to clean up the mess tomorrow morning." She sat down again, rubbing her temples. "Please, finish your drink, Miss Davis."

"No, I really-"

Mrs. Glampers reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a key on a long white string. The brass looked old and scratched and tarnished, engraved with the numbers **312**. "Please," Diana said. "Finish your cocktail. Give me ten more minutes of your time, and I'll hand you this key. I would give almost anything to be able to change your mind, but I like to think I can recognize the inevitable when I see it."

"You still use actual keys here?" Meredith asked. "That's sort of a nice touch. Antiquey."

"Suite 312 has never needed a magnetic lock on its door, because I am completely sure the device wouldn't work. Watches don't work in Suite 312. Sometimes they run backward, sometimes they simply go out, but you can't tell time with one. The same is true of portscreens and netscreens, save for the one already in there. But the thing is ancient, having belonged to the late queen herself. We've wiped it off, but sometimes it has a mind of its own."

"No way to fix it?"

"The only sure fix is to stay the hell out of that room."

"I can't do that," Meredith said, taking her portscreen and tucking it in her pocket. "But I think I can take time for that drink."


	2. Part 2

After ten tedious minutes and an absurdly sour drink, Meredith was still hell-bent on staying in Suite 312. Mrs. Diana Glampers had poured herself a glass of her fancy-ass wine, and had proposed toast to Meredith, saying that she would need it. While Glampers emptied her glass, Meredith asked how, if the room hadn't been occupied for twenty years, Diana knew that electronic devices didn't work in 312.

"The room goes through a light turn once a month, given that the ventilation in such an old structure is quite poor," Glampers said. "I didn't intend to give you the impression that it hasn't been occupied since 456. This is a historical monument, after all. My staff and I take care to keeping everything spic and span. That means—"

Meredith waved her hand. "I know what it means."

"The sheets were changed last night, Miss Davis."

Meredith sighed, setting her glass on the armrest and said: "You know, you would be right at home in a horror movie, Mrs. Glampers. You could play the gloomy old butler who tries to warn the young married couple way from the _Palace of Doom._ "

"It's a part I haven't had to play often, thank all the stars. Suite 312 isn't listed on any of the sites dealing with paranormal locations or psychic hotspots. All current information about 312 is strictly monitored by both the government," she put a hand to her chest, "and I."

 _That'll change after my book,_ Meredith thought, crossing her arms.

"I suppose I simply could have left 312 as it is anyway during most of its days and nights," the hotel manager mused. "Door locked, lights off, shades drawn to keep the sunlight from fading the carpet wallpaper and portraits, covers pulled up and canopy curtains closed, doorknob breakfast menu on the bed... but I can't bear to think of the air getting stuffy and old, like the air in an attic. Can't bear to think of the dust piling up until it's thick and fluffy. What does that make me, downright obsessive?"

"It makes you a hotel manager."

"I suppose. In any case, the maids are always sent to tidy up in pairs, with several security guards placed by the open doors. Over the years, I've come to notice that sending up several people on good terms allowed them to come out without too much damage to their person. Like their bonds make them…not _immune_ , per se, but safe enough, at least for the short amount of time it takes to do a light turn."

"Hoping for that bond to withstand the poltergeists?"

"Hoping for that bond, yes. And you can make fun of the Suite 312 poltergeists as much as you want, Miss Davis, but you'll feel them almost at once, of that I'm confident. Whatever there is in that room, it's not shy." Diana shook her head, gripping the old brass key in her clenched fist. "On many occasions, I went in with the maids, to supervise them, or to pull them out, if anything really awful started to happen. Nothing ever did. There were several who had weeping fits, one who had a laughing fit, and a number who fainted. Nothing too terrible, however."

"So what risk is there for me? Stay for the night, then. It'll be like a sleepover."

Glampers' gaze hardened. Meredith suddenly felt uneasy under stare, like a pupil being chastised by her teacher. The manager obviously didn't appreciate the joke. "One of them went blind."

" _What?"_

"She went blind. A young woman of twenty, Annalise Desmond. She was dusting off one of the statues, and all at once she began to scream. I asked her what was wrong. She dropped her duster and put her hands over her eyes and screamed that she was blind, but that she could see stars and fire. It went away almost as soon as I got her out through the door, and by the time I got her down the hallway to the elevator, her sight had begun to come back."

"You're telling me all this just to scare me, Mrs. Glampers, aren't you? To scare me off."

Glampers tipped back in her seat, setting the key back down on her desk with a _clink_. "You know the history of the room, beginning with the suicide of its first occupant."

"He jumped out the window straight into the lake." Meredith cocked her head. "Is it true that back in the day, the nobles would toss the corpses of the executed in that lake?"

The manager cleared her throat. "Yes, that is true—"

Meredith pulled out her portscreen and a pack of cigarettes, speaking discreetly into the speaker. "The Artemisia lake really is an ocean of _bodies_ —nice touch."

"You do know that smoking is prohibited in the Grand Artemisia Hotel—all throughout the city, too."

The writer looked down at her lap and gently picked up her smokes, feigning a pained expression. "Oh, I know. It's empty, see?" She drew it open and showed off the single cigarette, lolling around the box. "I quit years ago, but I always keep one to nibble on in case things get too _intense_."

"One woman died from choking in that room. Autopsy revealed that she had swallowed a dozen cigars that she had smuggled in." Glampers levelled her stare with Meredith's. "Suite 312 is a room not only of suicides but of strokes and heart attacks and epileptic seizures. One man who stayed in that room—the last one, in fact—apparently drowned in a bowl of soup. I know of several maids who have turned that room who now suffer from heart problems, emphysema, and diabetes. There was a heating problem on that floor three years ago, and head maintenance engineer at the time had to go into several of the rooms to check the heating units. 312 was one of them. He seemed fine then—both in the room and later on—but he died the following afternoon of a massive cerebral hemorrhage."

"Coincidence," Meredith said. Yet she could not deny that Diana was good, a true campfire story-teller.

"Coincidence," Glampers repeated softly. She held out the old-fashioned key on its flimsy white ribbon. "How is your own heart, Miss Davis?"

Meredith found it took a conscious effort to lift her hand, but once she got it moving, it was fine. It rose to the key without trembling at the fingertips, so far as she could see. "All fine," she said. "Now if you don't mind, I'd like to check in."

* * *

Diana insisted on accompanying Meredith in the elevator to the third floor, and tired of arguing with the headstrong woman, Meredith simply followed her lead in silence and admired the sights around her. In the elevator, Glampers once again offered to carry Meredith's briefcase, and Meredith once again refused. The button to the third floor was pressed and as the car rose, Meredith said, "I'm curious about something. Why didn't you simply create a fictional resident for Suite 312, if it scares you all as badly as you say it does? For that matter, why not declare it as your own residence?"

Diana sighed, crossing her arms around her chest. "I suppose I'm afraid I would be accused of fraud. The royal suites are property of the Lunar Republic, and therefore can't really belong to any one person. If I can't persuade you to stay out of 312, I doubt that I would have more luck in convincing the government that I took a perfectly good room off the market because I was afraid that spooks cause the occasional traveling official to jump out the window and sink all the way to the bottom of Artemisia Lake."

Meredith found herself incredibly disturbed by this. Before, it was clear that Glampers was playing it up to convince her against her goal, like the well-spoken saleswoman. But Meredith had payed for the night in 312, and it was all said and done. But she still spoke of 312 as if it truly were something to be afraid of. Because she believed in it. She believed in it all.

A pleasant ding rang out in the lavish space, and the glass doors slid open, revealing an even fancier hallway. The constant glass and gold and sparkles were making Meredith's head hurt. She stepped out, expecting to have Glampers follow her, but to her dismay, she turned to see that the manager had planted herself inside the elevator.

"Here we are," she said. "Your floor. 312 is to your left, at the end of the hall. Unless I absolutely have to, I don't go any closer than this." Glampers brushed her hair back, slight perspiration appearing on her dark skin, brought on by anxiety and fear. "The netscreen in the room has a comming function, of course. You could try it, if you find yourself in trouble...but I doubt that it will work. Not if the room doesn't want it to."

Meredith thought of a snarky reply, something about how that would save her a charge at least, but all at once her mouth seemed as heavy as her legs. It just lay there on the tip of her tongue. Suddenly, without Glampers even saying goodbye, the elevator doors slid shut. Meredith stood where she was for a moment, in the perfect silence of the Grand Artemisia Hotel, and thought of reaching out and pushing the elevator's call button.

Except if she did that, Glampers would win. And there would be a large, gaping hole where the best chapter of her new book should have been. The readers might not know that, her editor and her agent might not know it, the lawyer might not...but s _he_ would.

Puffing out her chest, she pulled the key to Suite 312 out of her side pocket and began to make her way down the hall, her feet as sticky as molasses. The reflective tile that covered the floor shimmered like diamonds, and the crystal chandeliers on the ceiling basked everything in a gentle light, picturesque against the pink and orange sunset that could be seen from the arched windows. Once Meredith managed to park herself in front of her room, she took in the first problem she had with her overnight residence. The door to Suite 312 was painted white, with solid silver embossed in a swirling pattern.

It was also crooked.

Not by a lot, but it was crooked, all right, tilted slightly to the left. Just enough to be irritating as all hell. It ruined the beauty of the hallway décor, and made Meredith look sideways, oddly squicked.

She bent over, aware that the slightly woozy feeling in her stomach left as soon as she was no longer looking at the off-kilter door. She unzipped the pocket on her bag, and took out her port. She pushed RECORD as she straightened up and opened her mouth to say, "The door of Suite 312 offers its own unique greeting; it appears to be crooked, tipped slightly to the left."

Meredith narrowed her eyes and stopped her recording. What was she talking about? The door wasn't crooked. It was perfectly straight. She turned, looked at the second door leading to 312, down the hall, then back at the door before her. Both doors were the same, white with silver and black doorknobs. Both perfectly straight.

She swallowed and brought the key to the lock, preparing to turn it. She stopped.

The door was crooked again.

She stepped back, the key still left in the keyhole. It was like airsickness, as the door seemed to turn to the right, but she blinked, and the door was straight. It had always been straight. Meredith grunted and turned the key, pushing the door open.

The room was completely dark. Fumbling for a moment, she found a glowing pad that basked the room with light as soon as she put her fingers on it. The rumoured luxury of the room had not been exaggerated—the main foyer or whatnot gave way to three other pieces, one of which Meredith saw was the bedroom. To the left was a sitting room, with a writing desk, exceedingly lavish sofas and the famous netscreen that Glampers refused to let up about. Walking straight ahead, she found herself in a world of windows, each draped with velvet curtains. Another chandelier hung from the ceiling, adorned with crystals. From the windows was a magnificent view of the Artemisia Lake and the hotel gardens, where she could see some people milling about among the flowers.

"From the window I'm looking at," Meredith whispered to her port, "The very first guest of Suite 312 jumped down to his death in the _ocean of bodies_." She glanced around with a smirk. "It's not hard to believe that royalty used to live in here—this all just screams expensive and tacky. The wallpaper is all white and golden flowers and I'll bet that the curtains are worth more money than I've ever seen in my humble lifetime." She walked up to the ornate fireplace on the very back wall, scrutinizing it with her writer's eye. "This is supposed to be history…it seems more like a movie set to me. If it's true that indulgence is the embodiment of evil, then I'm in the seventh circle of hell. But, I must admit, it does have its charms."

She plopped her two bags on the divan and opened three of the windows, the cool breeze from outside chilling her to the core; it was pleasant and soothing, a small reminder of home. Scotland, the huge forests overflowing with natural beauty, the embodiment of the Earth. She was glad that she had had the common sense to leave Luna as soon as she was able, much to the despair of her family. The selfish writer had never fared well under a dome.

Meredith glanced at the walls. That room, like the others, also contained several portraits, which Meredith assumed all depicted members of the Blackburn line. Each face offered something new to the table of wildly varying traits, and she wondered if, for any of them, what was shown on canvas was their true face. There was dust on the glass covering the pictures, and Meredith trailed her fingers across the face of a black-haired queen and left two parallel streaks. The dust had a greasy, slippery feel. _Like silk just before it rots_ was what came to her, but she wasn't about to put _that_ on tape. How was s _he_ supposed to know what silk felt like just before it rotted? It was a drunk's thought.

Suddenly, all at once, the feeling in Meredith's gut returned with a vengeance. She took a step back and found that the painting was also crooked. It was crooked in the way that all the pictures in the room were crooked, come to think of it, now that Meredith looked around. Of course they were crooked, there was nothing supernatural about that—paintings would go on being crooked, as old as those were. _They've been here a long time, no doubt about that,_ Meredith thought. _If I lifted them away from the walls, I'd bet I'd see lighter patches on the wallpaper. Or bugs squirming out, the way they do when you turn over a rock._

Meredith scrunched her nose. There was something both shocking and nasty about that idea; it came with a vivid image of blind bugs oozing out of the pale and formerly protected wallpaper like living pus. With a flick of her thumb, she brought the port to her mouth once again. "I have to admit—Glampers has me riled up, without a doubt. I dare say I'm even uneasy right no—"

She was cut off by sudden flash from behind, and she turned to see a faint glow emanating from the room next door. Slightly startled, she put a hand to her chest and began to make her way towards the light. In the other space—the study, she imagined—the netscreen was inexplicably turned on and the display showed an archaic-looking menu, with symbols and applications (at least, she assumed they were applications) that Meredith didn't recognize at all. So Glampers was saying something, when she mentioned that the thing was ancient, so old that even the software hadn't been updated. There was no way she could figure how to use it, she concluded. She was no technical whiz by any means.

On the screen was a digital clock, constantly ticking down the seconds, then minutes, then hours, like any other clock. But the time wasn't there. It didn't indicate eight-twenty-seven, like her port, but the more Meredith stared at her own device, the more the minutes seemed to fade away, the more she realized that time had stopped. Her port was frozen at eight-twenty-seven, and then her recording app was frozen, and with a jolt the entire system crashed. Meredith, her lips trembling, gazed at the black screen, her feet rooted to the ground.

The netscreen flashed again. Meredith peered up, her eyes wide and glossy as she stared at the countdown, the white numbers clicking by **—60:00, 59:59, 59:58…**

* * *

 _Would you like to relive this hour again?_


	3. Part 3

**—59:01, 59:00, 58:59...**

* * *

Meredith struggled to reactivate her portscreen, but the device remained dead, as if someone had flushed through the interior with water. The screen on the wall, however, blared so bright, and Meredith's eyes began to water just looking at it. Her breath hitched, and she trudged out of the study and back into the window room.

" _That_ was weird..." Meredith said to herself, pretending that her port was still working. "It's sweltering in here, all of a sudden. I wonder if the heater is malfunctioning, like Glampers said it has a tendency to do," she whispered. Arms hugging her chest, she gazed at the ceiling.

 _This is a nice change from the usual, at any rate. This place feels genuinely creepy._

Before she knew it, she found herself in the bedroom, a treasure trove of velvet and silk, with the comfiest-looking bed Meredith had ever seen. She narrowed her eyes. _How many people have slept in that bed before me? How many people were sick? How many had killed or been killed? What have they done on it, to themselves or each other?_

Meredith scrunched her nose, disgusted at the direction her thoughts were taking. She made a mental resolve to sleep on the lush white divan, if she slept at all. Sweat ran from the nape of her neck, slowly crawling down her back beneath her shirt. Fanning her face, she opened another window and took in a lungful of air. From that room, she could see the courtyard, and to her surprise, it was nearly empty. Not an hour ago it had been crawling with tourists and hotel guests.

She fell into a reverie, enchanted by the beauty of the palace's structure, and she leaned out on the windowsill with a stupid grin on her face. All she did was sigh in response to the creaks and groans of the shifting window panes.

 _SLAM!_

Meredith shrieked as the glass crashed shut in front of her, catching her left hand in its grip. She stumbled back, delirious with pain. Like a young child, she sobbed and buried her hand in the fabric of her shirt, rocking back and forth until the pain suddenly vanished. Her ears blocked from the sudden pressure, as if she had just been immersed into an air-tight vacuum. She had once written in one of her novels that she always felt like she was on poison gas, and that's what it felt like now: someone who has been gassed or forced to smoke hallucinogens laced with insect poison. Glampers had done this, of course, probably with the wicked laughing encouragement of the security people. Pumped her special poison gas up through the vents. Just because Meredith could _see_ no vents didn't mean the vents weren't there.

And then, as quickly as it came, the pressure dissipated and she let out a moan of relief. Her vision cleared and the air tasted clean and pure, like the breeze outside and at the spaceport and back home in Scotland.

She sniffed. Fresh air mixed with the stench of blood. It was spurted across the window, concentrated where it had shut on Meredith's left hand. Shaking, she risked bringing it out of her shirt, and found that she was missing her pinkie finger.

* * *

 **—** **52:14, 52:13, 52:12...**

* * *

Meredith opened her eyes and found herself sprawled across the lush carpet. Her view of the ceiling was as magnificent as it was sickening. She had enough appreciation for old-fashioned art, but she had never really enjoyed being stared at by a set of fat little cherubs.

One of them winked at her.

She shot up to an upright position, her heart beating so hard that she could feel it in her neck and wrists as well as in her chest. Her eyes were throbbing in their sockets. Suite 312 was wrong, yes indeed, 312 was _very_ wrong. The blood on her shirt made her cringe. It was soaked deep through the fabric, all the way onto her skin as she pulled it up to look at her midriff. Doing so, she once again caught a glimpse of her hand, and she screamed.

Her severed finger was lying in a pool of blood beneath the window. Meredith blinked and screamed again. Dashing on all-fours, she gently picked up the extremity with her good hand, shaking harder than an earthquake. There was no pain, but the shock that flooded through Meredith's veins was even more excruciating than the one time she broke her toe on her coffee table. Luckily, there was an ice dispenser in the bathroom down the mini-corridor. She struggled, through her tears, to fill a plastic bowl full of cold cubes.

Her finger was quickly buried in ice and the rest of her hand wrapped in sterile bandage from a first-aid kit Meredith found in the cupboard. Her stomach was about to force itself from her throat, the taste of adrenaline on her tongue. With the bowl in one arm and her bags slung over her shoulder, she grabbed the key to Suite 312 from the table in the first room, tearing down to the main door.

"Okay, you win! You've won, Glampers! I'm out of here!" She cried, forcing the key into the keyhole. Her grip like a vice, she twisted the gilded doorknob, but the door wouldn't open, of course. The chain hung unhooked, the thumb bolt stood straight up like clock hands pointing to six o'clock, but the door wouldn't open.

Meredith screamed a third time, pushing and pulling at the knob like a madwoman, effectively breaking it off. She dumped both the broken knob and her finger-bowl on the floor, twisting the key with reckless abandon. In response, it was sucked in through the keyhole. She gasped in surprise and put her eye on the hole, peering in to be met with the internal workings of the lock, and no brass key on a little white ribbon.

Like a broken record, she screamed and roared on the top of her lungs. Bloodstains were left on the door as she pounded and pounded. "LET ME OUT! LET ME—PLEASE, I'M HURT! _HELP ME_!"

No help came. Meredith blundered towards the nearest window, but the room was suddenly fourteen floors up instead of three. She shook her head, her chest heaving. Her tears filled her mouth with a salty taste that made her want to retch. _Call for help, call for help, call for_ —

It was no use; her port, functional again, displayed a cheery little notice telling her that there was no net reception. She let her bags drop to the floor and sobbed. The netscreen flashed again behind her, playing a little jingle that felt more like a demonic chant rather than a song.

She approached the thing warily. The image of a spinning globe with the words ' _Incomming Comm'_ scrawled beneath it was shown on the screen, the goddamn jingle rising in volume. Meredith meant to jab out a hand to the old-fashioned device and tap on the ' _Accept_ ' icon, in neon green. Instead she watched her arm descend to the framed screen in a kind of delirious slow motion, so like the arm of a diver that she almost expected to see bubbles rising from it.

"Front desk—how may I help you?"

"Yes, this is Meredith Davis, you know which room," she whimpered, clutching her injured hand to her belly. "I need to be taken to the hospital immediately. I'm seriously injured and you must send someone up to—"

"My apologies, Miss Davis. There has been a slight mix-up with your room service order; your sandwich will be a little late."

"Wha—I didn't order a sandwich! I need medical attention, NOW!"

The netscreen blipped. "Please, there is no need to shout, Miss Davis. We are working as hard as we can to provide you with your requested programming," the perky receptionist's voice tittered.

"ARE YOU _LISTENING_ TO ME?! I'm missing a _FINGER_!" Meredith grabbed the netscreen's frame and shook it. "I'm bleeding everywhere! _Please_!"

There was a pause. Meredith let go of the screen, wiping her nose. "Oh, that—please, look to your left in the sitting-room. On the table, there should be something to help you. If there is anything else you need, just ask one of the portraits; they'll be happy to assist."

* * *

 _Big sister?_

 **No...you're not real. _Stay away._**

 _Do you not love me anymore?_


	4. Part 4

**—49:38, 49:37, 49:36...**

* * *

The portraits in the sitting-room had all switched places. Meredith knew this because now the black-haired queen was front-and-centre, right in the middle of the wall. She had pulled down the top of her gown, baring her breasts, and she held one in each hand, a drop of blood hanging from each nipple. She was staring directly into Meredith's eyes and grinning ferociously. Her teeth were filed to cannibal points.

Meredith squinted, her cheeks dripping with tears. She shook her head and whispered ' _no'_ in a sickening mantra.

The black-haired queen stared forward, a sweet smile on her red lips, her eyes painted with flawless winged eyeliner. Her satin gown was settled perfectly over her body. Meredith wiped her eyes, cringing again at the sight of the bloody bandage on her hand. Her grip on her finger-bowl wavered as her body trembled. She was afraid, very afraid; the room could feel it.

The so-called 'help' that the receptionist spoke of sat on the coffee table in the form of another first-aid kit. (And now that she thought about it, that person in the netscreen wasn't a receptionist at all.) Much bigger than the one in the bathroom, it contained rolls upon rolls of bandages in different sizes and an entire pharmacy's worth of anti inflammatory drugs.

But what caught her attention was the emergency surgery equipment that was nestled neatly at the bottom. Her heart raced and her head spun. The thought of sewing her own finger back on made her want to unhave lunch, but the wound was bleeding more and more and her severed pinkie was starting to turn purple on its ice bed. She gently placed the bowl on the glass surface and fetched a couple towels from the bathroom. Going to and fro proved to be a chore as the carpet rippled as if to trip her.

"You _can't_ expect me to this to myself..." she mumbled, staring into the eyes of the black-haired queen. The black-haired queen shrugged, pointing down to the bowl of hot water Meredith held. Meredith glanced down to see that her soaked bandage was dripping into the clear liquid. She let a groan like a bratty teenager and went back to fill up the water again.

The entire set of surgical equipment was sprawled out across some towels. Meredith knew that the process of reattaching limbs was complicated and dangerous, but she was so desperate and delirious that she simply gritted her teeth and injected her palm with an anesthetic. She massaged some blood back into her pinkie, dispelling a bit of the purple hue that it had developed.

 _"You shouldn't have put that directly in ice,"_ a man's voice whispered. Meredith snarled as she began to reconnect her finger, first by the muscle and then the skin. Stitches were placed in a straight pattern; black and shimmering, they kept the entire digit in place. A sigh escaped Meredith's lips as she applied an anti-bacterial salves over the wound. It left a pleasant cooling sensation. Meredith found a splint in the kit and tied it on with thin gauze, finishing off with a bandage wrapped against the next good finger and tied off around her palm. The blood was no longer visible and relief flooded through her. Even if she ended up losing her finger in the end, at least she wouldn't have to watch it rot.

* * *

 **—46:08, 46:07, 46:06...**

* * *

Her hand now taken care of, Meredith decided to finish investigating the room. Her sense of urgency had dimmed somewhat, as if she knew that escape was impossible and that she was stuck for the night, or even longer. She didn't, of course—but the room grew bored of watching her scream against a door.

The bedroom had not changed. Meredith slowly sat down on the bed, despite her disgust for it earlier. She ran a hand through her hair and held her port against her chest. "I'm mad. Crazy and furious, both. This goddamn room is getting disgusting, and I want to—wait. This is a first..." she held up a shaking hand. "That door wasn't open before," Meredith told her portscreen. "What did I do this morning...I woke up, ate breakfast, and I drank—"

She jumped up and dropped her port on the duvet. "That _drink_. Did Glampers put something in it? The server?" She gagged, but there was nothing left in her stomach to throw up. "I should've known better than to accept candy from strangers... _oh, why do you always spike my drinks_?!"

She stomped over to the closet, slamming the door behind her with a shriek of fury, that was quickly swallowed back down her throat with a gulp. Hotel closets were always empty save for some extra bedding and the occasional bathrobe. But the massive space was stocked with racks upon racks of long coats in black, blue, red and green, with the occasional white sprinkled in the mix. Meredith gently felt a bell-shaped sleeve between her fingers. The fabric felt like velvet and gave her a pleasant feeling of home and comfort.

Which quickly morphed into a vision of a crying man with a gun held up to his head. Meredith backed away just as the shot rang out, and it still echoed between her ears even once she let go of the coat sleeve. She brushed her fingers against the next one, and was caught with a woman that was slowly dying in her bed, old and withered. The next showed her someone drowning, someone stabbed. She encountered one of the white coats—though she had no desire to watch another former thaumaturge meet their demise, she placed a hand on the garment anyway.

Her head was instantly filled with demented laughter, and the rumbling of a spaceship could be heard faintly in the distance. She noticed someone writhing at her feet, and she glanced down. She was met with a woman who had the prettiest black hair Meredith had ever seen. The woman, who donned the white coat that Meredith gripped in her bandaged hand, twitched about on the tiled ground, giggling about pretty birds.

Even after she let go of the coat with an ear-splitting shriek, the laughter continued. It bounced around in Meredith's skull with incredible force. She felt the blood pouring out from her eyes and nose and ears, and as it pooled in her mouth, she ripped back her hair and screamed for the thousandth time.

(No matter how much you scream and cry you can NEVER RUN, DO YOU HEAR?! _NEVER RUN!)_

There was nothing else but that voice, the _cackling_ , and Meredith fell to her knees. For the first time in her life, she prostrated herself like the sinner that she was and prayed, _prayed to the non-denominational star god,_ to anyone that would help her.

 _(Dottie?)_

The laughter ceased. She looked down to see that there was no blood, and she couldn't even taste the remnants of adrenaline on her tongue.

 _(Are you hurt? Do you want me to kiss it better?)_

Her legs shaking, Meredith propped herself up against the wall. _Panting_ —like a scruffy little dog, she tried to steady her breathing. The sweet voice faded like the crazy woman's cackling, and it instilled a greater fear than anything the thaumaturge coats had shown her. It was such a familiar sound, so beautiful, so pure, and it began to cry softly, lost in despair and anguish.

Meredith let out a sob herself. It was no longer the sweet little voice, but that of another stranger. Weary, she stood on her wobbly feet and trudged over to the source of the sound. It was a foolish thing to do, falling for another trick of the room, but Meredith was drawn to whatever it showed, a moth to a flame.

In the sitting-room, a woman sat hunched on the silver and black couch, crying in her hands. Meredith approached her warily. The portraits had changed _again_ , but this time, it was their faces. They all had gaping maws and eyes without pupils. It made them look related, all members of the same inbred and cataclysmically retarded family. The woman continued to weep, graceful in a creepy sort of way.

"Is there something wrong?" Meredith asked.

The woman sniffed, wiping her eyes and holding her head up with a great deal of pride. Meredith noticed that she was quite beautiful; she had long brown hair and soft tanned skin, her cheeks covered in streaks of mascara. She wore a silver gown adorned with pearls, and a torn ribbon winded up her arm, frayed at the end. "I don't want to marry him." Her chest heaved. "They all laugh when I say that. They think it's all a _joke_. It's not funny, though... _it's. Not. Funny..._ "

"Could you...could you explain? I'm afraid I don't understand."

"They say that I should be grateful. I'm marrying the king. I'll be rich and beautiful and taken care of for the rest of my life."

Meredith cried out as the woman's arm shot out, dragging her close. The woman's putrid breath spread over her skin as she whispered in Meredith's ear. "I don't want him to touch me, though. And he _will_. I'll have to sit by quietly and take it...I don't _like_ it when other people touch me," she hissed.

Meredith wrenched her away—a huge mistake. The woman stumbled back like a bird, falling down with a _thump_. Time stood still for a moment, until the woman screamed like a banshee and charged, her hands intent on Meredith's throat.

Within two seconds Meredith was on her feet and running out of the room, sliding, flailing. There was nothing but panic—she grabbed the nearest sword in her grasp and held it out straight in front of her, bracing herself for impact.


	5. Part 5

**—39:46, 39:45, 39:44...**

By the time Meredith noticed that the shrieking woman had stopped moving, she was already drenched in the blood that spurted from the woman's abdomen. She stumbled back, the sword wedged in her flesh.

"I...I'm sorry..." she gasped, spluttering. "I didn't mean to _scare you...I've never been good with children._ "

Meredith covered her nose with her injured hand, spitting out a mouthful of blood. It was sweet ambrosia, tasting like honey and maple, not like blood at all. She made the mistake of meeting the woman's gaze, deep black eyes that pierced into her being and flooded her memories with those of this dead queen, the late Queen Jannali, the mother of Luna's notorious tyrant. Meredith screamed at the sensation of possession, as this woman's mind binded with her own. For one horrifying, despicable moment, they were one and the same.

But it was only for a moment; the queen was quick to break her hold on Meredith. Jannali pulled the sword from her gut, slimy blood coating her hair and face. She began to chant, inane gibberish at first, but with time and few good head shakes, Meredith could make out what she said. "This is _nine! Nine!_ This is _nine! Nine!_ This is _ten! Ten!_ We have killed your friends! Every friend is now dead! This is _six! Six!_ "

Jannali's entire image flickered, and even though she returned to normal in a flash, her voice shifted down in oblivion. Meredith listened with growing horror, not at what the voice was saying but at its rasping emptiness. It was not a machine-generated voice, but it wasn't a human voice, either. It was the voice of the room. The presence pouring out of the walls and the floor, the presence speaking to her through dead Jannali had nothing in common with any haunting or paranormal event she had ever read about. There was something alien here.

 _No, not here yet...but coming. It's hungry, and you're dinner._

The sword fell from Queen Jannali's relaxed fingers and she stood. Her mouth was sealed shut as she backed away, blending into an empty frame. She closed her eyes and smiled gently, and she was nothing but a painting. Meredith's stomach was swinging back and forth inside her, and she could still hear that voice rasping out of the black: _"Eighteen!_ This is now _eighteen!_ Take cover when the siren sounds! This is _four! Four!_ "

Meredith blinked. Before her, the room had begun to melt.

It was sagging out of its right angles and straight lines, not into curves but into strange arcs that hurt her eyes. The glass chandelier in the center of the ceiling began to sag like a thick glob of spit. The portraits began to bend, turning into shapes like the windshields of old hovers. The people in the paintings all opened their mouths and screamed, a demonic chorus in every key imaginable. The voice coming from Jannali was now the voice of an electric hair-clipper that has learned how to talk: _"Five!_ This is _five!_ Ignore the siren! Even if you leave this room, you can never leave this room! _Eight!_ This is _eight!"_

The door to the bedroom and the door to the hall had begun to collapse downward, widening in the middle and becoming passages for beings possessed of unhallowed shapes. Now she could see rips in the flowered wallpaper, black pores that quickly grew to become mouths. The floor sank into a concave arc and now she could hear it coming, the dweller in the room behind the room, the thing in the walls, the owner of the buzzing voice. _"Six!"_ the portraits screamed, _"Six,_ this is _goddamn fucking SIX!"_

Meredith ducked to the floor as the windows shattered in an ear-splitting explosion, showering her with broken glass. The shards landed in her hair and the creases of her sweater. Only when the thundering sound drifted away did she lift her head; she didn't know whether it was because the noise has stopped or she had finally gone deaf. She shook her head like a shaggy dog and wiped at her nose, only to find that there was no blood. Her sweater and pants were clean, as was the sword lying on the floor.

The same couldn't be said for the room. All the portraits had bled onto the wall, not with blood but with a rainbow of paints. The carpet and furniture was covered in glass, and the chandelier hung precariously on one chain. Meredith quickly moved out from under it, careful not to step on any sharp pieces. The wallpaper had peeled off in chunks, revealing a hideous wooden wall beneath. Although there was no longer glass in any of the windows, Meredith still couldn't see the outside from them. She soon saw why as she stumbled forward, tumbling on a fallen curtain rod.

The windows were completely bricked off, and a message had been scrawled in big black letters across the stone, in each and every window, like some sick poetry.

 ** _BURN ME ALIVE_**

* * *

 **—30:33, 30:32, 30:31...**

 _"Come here, baby sister. I want to show you something."_

Meredith tore away from the bricked window, listening intently for the new voice, the new round of danger. She could hear footsteps coming from the bedroom, and with bated breath, she fell to her knees, apprehensive.

 _"Show me what?"_

Gently, as quickly as she dared, she scooted over to the doorway, intent on not attracting the attention of whoever was hanging around the other side. Through the open space, she noticed a looming fireplace carved from dark stone where the bed used to be. In the hearth, warm flames danced about, and a young girl sat cross-legged before them. She was turned toward Meredith, but didn't seem to notice her as she beckoned a smaller girl forward.

"Watch," said the grinning girl, once the younger one settled beside her. From where Meredith knelt, ducked behind the doorway, she saw the oldest girl dump a bowl of sand of the lush carpet.

"They're not real, right?" The little one asked with discernible fear. "Just an illusion. Just like a glamour."

Meredith tucked her knees to her chest and struggled to even her breathing. Her heart pounded in her ears, and she prayed to whoever could hear that the two girls wouldn't notice her.

"Go ahead. Touch it."

A pause. "I don't want to."

Meredith could hear a frustrated sigh. She rocked back, wiping her stray tears.

"Don't be a baby. It isn't real, Levana."

Ice formed in the pits of Meredith's stomach. Channary and Levana. She was seeing _Channary and Levana._ It surprised her that she even remembered the elder sister's name, that she even existed, for all anyone remembered was the notorious Levana. But then again, maybe she didn't remember— it wasn't her own thought. Meredith could nearly feel the room's spirit whispering in her ear with its poison and maggot-ridden breath.

"I know, but … I don't want to," Levana said, her voice small and inhuman.

Meredith hid behind her hair. She heard a growl and a shriek, as well as the scuffle of feet on carpet. She risked a glance past the doorway, and noticed Channary holding Levana's head in the lit fireplace. Meredith could feel a cry of anger and concern bubbling up her throat, but she quickly stamped it down before she gave herself away. For an excruciating moment, nothing happened. Then, quickly, Levana pulled her torso away from the fire with a shake. She had not a scratch on her.

Meredith brushed her hair back in a strange sense of relief. It must've been a holographic fire. It wasn't real. But then again, the entire sight of the two princesses couldn't have been real, so it was an illusion within an illusion.

"See?" said Channary, gesturing to the flames. Levana scooted away. With an eerie silence, Meredith found her portscreen and quickly booted it up, and found that the camera was fully functional. Her hand shook as she held out the device and continued to watch through the cracked display, the red record button blinking in the corner of her vision; in some vain attempt to regain her sanity, she hoped to replay the footage later and see, through the mechanical eye of a camera, if what the room showed her was truly real.

It brought back memories of field trips to the museum. Between the stern lectures given by her teacher and the scoldings she would receive for running off on her own, Meredith remembered staring up at various exhibits and snapping pictures left and right to scrapbook later. She imagined that she would someday visit all those places, all those ancient cultures decimated and left to rot away with time. That what this room was, she realized; a hellish museum, with the last remnants of a demented dynasty left to nothing. And it was hungry, yes, hungry for revenge.

By then, Meredith had stopped listening to what was happening around the corner. She kept filming, of course, but her port was the only witness of these events; Meredith herself had begun to slip away, rising out of her body and so close to freedom. She thought of opening her eyes, to see if she really was floating away; instead, she tried to shut down her brain. Tried to forget that she's ever been alive.

Maybe if she did that, then death would sneak in and snatch her up right from under the room's nose. It had worked for a fraction of a second until she heard the screams, snapping her back into her body. Her head slammed against the wall. She added her own voice to the wave of shrieks, and despite the room's enticing, she refused peer around the corner. She knew what was happening. It was being whispered in her empty skull, bouncing around like a marble, _clink clink clink._ She didn't need to watch as well. No one needed to—her port had been dropped on the carpet and shoved against the wall.

Meredith's mouth watered slightly at the scent of roasted meat wafting through the air, wonderful chicken on the barbeque in the open air, on a camping trip with friends and plenty of drinks to share. These things were blurred in her memory, but accessible. Then, it was no longer chicken, but burnt flesh, the flesh of a little girl. She regretted feeling hunger pangs, but it didn't last long, anyway. She felt quite ill now, even more so as the smell and smoke thickened. She ducked down below the ash. The smoke, to her surprise, didn't affect her at all, and she stood, waving it away from her face. It wasn't like campfire smoke that stung her eyes and choked her from the inside **—** it was more like fog. Eerie fog that was right at home in a cheesy cemetery scene.

 _(Dottie)_

Her heart lurched. Everything was now completely silent, save for Meredith's breathing. She made her way through the fog into the bedroom, noticing that the bed was back in its proper place, and the two girls were nowhere to be found. And to her left, where a picture of some fruit had been, the wall was bulging outward toward her, splitting open in those long cracks that gaped like mouths, opening on a world from which _something_ was now approaching. Meredith Davis could hear its slobbering, avid breath, and smell something alive and dangerous.

She giggled.

"It's like…like a lion at the zoo. Come to think of it, the entire goddamned room suite smells like a filthy animal!" Meredith spat into her port between peals of laughter.

The structure groaned as if in anger at her statement. She snapped out of her giggles and wrapped her arms around herself. She no longer had any desire to laugh. There was no reason to laugh. She would die here in 312, and her end will be unspeakable. To a coroner it might look like a stroke or a heart attack, but the actual cause of her death would be much nastier.

The faintest echo of a voice brushed up her spine, whispering in her ear, like a lover.

 _Much_ nastier.

* * *

 **—26:09, 44:43, 3:12...**

 _(Do you not love me anymore?)_


	6. Part 6

_You know it wasn't our fault._

Meredith growled, shoving a bundle of clothes into the only empty corner of her suitcase. "We should've helped her fight! No, while she wasted away, you just filled her head with stories of heaven and the clouds!" She shrieked, shoving Albert aside in search for her port.

Albert, ever so patient, brushed the dust from his shirt. His skin was sallow and unhealthy, an attribute he shared with all members of the Davis Clan. His hellish black hair was in dire need of a trim, but he would delay and delay so to save the money for Maggie's treatments. Not that it would help now.

"She always liked those stories," he muttered in his hand, his face downcast. The past few months had taken a toll on everyone, and with his father at work and his mother too damaged to leave her bedroom, Albert was left with calming his raging younger sister.

Meredith snorted, slipping in a couple of bottles of whiskey amongst her mess of clothes for good measure. Her anger had torn her own bedroom a new one; the old aquarium lay shattered across the desk and her old schoolwork had been flung all over the floor. They had only received confirmation of Maggie's passing the week before, and after the funeral yesterday, there was nothing left to quench Meredith's fury. Anger at the system, for letting the gas pipes in a school full of _children_ be left in disarray until they burst. A toxic mixture of carbon dioxide and leftover regolith dust had been spewed through the air vents, contaminating at least three hundred students; among those was little Maggie Davis, a redhead with flowers always sewn on her ratty dresses.

Meredith had loved Maggie like her own. She was her little _Mops_ , and although it would always get on Meredith's nerves, Maggie had been fond of calling her Dottie. Albert had tried to adopt the nickname as well, but Meredith quickly taught him his right to call her by anything but what was indicated on her birth certificate.

Unlike Maggie, who could call her anything. Maggie could make her _do_ anything.

One could even say it was a glamour, but the fabled 'talent' of long-ago Lunars had been since eradicated from the population. Now, even in death, Maggie's harm made rage broil in Meredith's belly; she was sure that if she were to open her mouth again, it would flow out like molten rock. Which is why didn't say anything as Albert demanded to know why she was packing her things in the first place.

"It's not like you have anywhere to go," he added, gripping her shoulder and making her turn to face him.

Meredith forced her bag closed and rolled her neck. "I've been accepted into Dufferin's writing internship. In _Scotland_ ," she sneered.

"You can't be serious." Albert struggled to keep his sister's pace as she left the room in long strides. "You're not leaving us! Mom and Dad can't lose another child! Meredith, have you lost your _mind_?!"

"Actually, I think I've only just found it. There isn't anything left for me on this dirty little rock. If I were you, I'd think of leaving too."

Albert spluttered. "You can't," he repeated.

Meredith sneered. "Watch me."

They fought all the way to the front door of their little house. Albert, in his exhaustion, put up his hands in defeat. "You're a cruel bitch, you know that?"

Meredith's nostrils flared, and she wrenched the door open. Who cared if dust flew into the house? Her idiot brother was good at sweeping up after people.

"You're a coward," he continued. "All three of us cry for Maggie every day. Mom and Dad work themselves to the bone to support us. We still want to be a family. And yet you're just...you're just running away."

"This will never be a family again. Not the way I want it." Meredith slung her bag over her shoulder. "I can't stay here anymore. I feel like I'm in a cage. On Earth, there are blue skies and wide open spaces; I'll make a life for myself, and I'll send you some money I make from my books. Mom and Dad will understand."

"They'll never forgive you."

"That's okay."

" _I'll_ never forgive you."

Meredith nodded. "Goodbye, Albert. I'll comm you when I get to Dufferin."

She barely heard his response as he angrily shut the door. "Don't bother."

* * *

 **—23:56, 23:55, 23:54...**

* * *

Her portscreen was working again. Meredith slumped down on her knees and turned off the camera. She promised herself that she would watch the playback when she was finally free of the wretched room, but deep down, she knew she wouldn't escape. What was the point of even filming at all? She could still smell Levana's burnt flesh wafting through the stale air. She knew very well it had happened.

"I'm tired," she whispered into the portscreen. "I'd go lie on the bed, but I'm afraid of what someone might do to me there. Better to sleep on the floor, I guess."

Meredith crawled over to the one patch of carpet that wasn't either bloody or showered with glass. She cradled her hand to her chest, ignoring the wet bandage. She had run out of gauze by then, and even though the blood kept on flowing, she wasn't dying. The room wouldn't let her go that easily.

Her hand began to throb in pain, and Meredith was convinced that the stitches were coming undone. Before long, her finger would fall off. There was no way she was going to keep it. "I'll only ever have four fingers now," she whimpered. "I want my pinkie back. Give it back!" Meredith shouted. "Oh, go to hell!"

Her port pinged. Meredith glanced at it, exhaustion settling in her bones and keeping her chained to the floor. On the screen glowed a notification for her net-drama feed. A new episode had been released five minutes ago. Excitement burst through Meredith's veins. Connection. By some miracle, she had net connection. She snatched up the screen and poked around—grinning like a maniac, she pulled up Albert's contact and placed a voice call. Everything spun and her heart thudded in her ears. _Yes, yes! Pick up!  
_  
"Hello?"

Meredith quaked with a sense of relief, unlike one she had ever known before. It was him. Real, human Albert. "Albert, it's me, Meredith. Listen, I need your help—"

" _Meredith?"_ She heard fiddling on the other end, and her screen lit up with Albert's face. "What the hell—why are you calling me?" He frowned. "And not even a hello. Typical."

"I'm sorry, but I really need you to help me. I'm in trouble. Call the police, and tell them to come to the Grand Artemisia Hotel—"

"Wait. You're in _Artemisia_? _Since when_?" He cut her off once again, and Meredith felt panic threatening to throttle her. She didn't know how long the connection would last.

"I don't have time for this! Albert, you have to call the cops, the guard, anyone! Tell them I'm in Suite 312!" She let out a sob. " _There's something here trying to kill me_!"

"But why—"

"ALBERT! PLEASE, CALL THEM!"

"Okay, okay!" Albert held his hands up. "Calm down. Which room was it?

"Suite 312," she cried. "The hotel manager knows I'm in here. She'll know I'm in danger."

"Well...why aren't you calling her, then?"

Meredith cried again. "CALL THEM! NOW!"

"I _AM_!" Albert shouted back. He turned away from the screen, his port to his ear. She could hear him talking urgently to whoever was on the other end.

"Tell them I'm hurt. I'm missing a finger." She held up her hand.

Albert got off the line just as she did so, and he gaped at her. "What the hell happened?!"  
"It's out to get me, Albert. I don't know how much longer I can last. It's counting down to something..."

"What?"

"It's an _evil fucking room_ ," Meredith whispered, crossing her arms over her chest.

"This is ridiculous." Albert gasped. "Hold on. The police are on their way, and I'm coming too."

She didn't know whether she was delirious or if the room told her so, but she was suddenly terrified of the room taking Albert too. No. He couldn't set foot in 312. He had to stay in their poor mining sector, far away from the hotel. She opened her mouth to scream for him to run. But with horror, she watched as her image on the display began speaking without her. Encouraging Albert to come. Begging for help. Meredith roared in fury, tears streaming down her cheeks. "NO! Albert, don't fall for its SHIT!"

"Stay put, Dottie. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

Just before the feed cut off, Meredith's image winked. She screamed again, only fuelling her terror. The port went black. Meredith got to her feet and raced to the sitting-room, where the infernal netscreen continued to tick away. _19 minutes_. He wouldn't even make it in time.

It didn't take long for her to tire of watching the countdown. She trudged into the bedroom; Meredith gave up all resistance to the idea of sleeping on the bed and sank down on the mattress. She let out a sigh, despite herself. It was the most comfortable and luxurious thing she had ever lain on. She tried not to remember that this was where Queen Levana slept.

"Good night, room. I ask that you let me sleep."

The air thickened. Meredith scrunched her nose and curled in on herself. She had no use for the duvet; her shirt and hair clung to her back with her sweat. The heat had returned full-force.  
 _  
(Dottie)  
_  
It seemed like an agonizing eternity before she got to sleep. Whispers danced across her skin, in her ears, promising both pain and relief.

 _(Do you not love me anymore?)  
_  
Everything suddenly changed. She was able to breathe effortlessly; the air thinned and cooled. She could feel a breeze blowing through her red curls. It nearly felt wet, like little snowflakes landing down on her skin. In the dark, she was nestled safely under wool blankets. Her head was supported by soft pillows. Her pain had been erased. She felt like she was sleeping in on a lazy Sunday morning.

Groggily, she opened her eyes. To her immense gratitude, she found herself back in her own bedroom, the glacial winds of Scotland coming in through her open window. Snow drifted through the air. It was December, just as Meredith remembered it being when she left. Smiling, she sat up and rubbed her eyes.

She was home.

* * *

 **–17:09, 17:08, 17:08, 17:08, 17:08**...

* * *

 _Even if you leave, you will never truly leave this room!_


	7. Part 7

Her small house was exactly as she had left it; green throw draped haphazardly over the couch, three dirty plates in the sink, an empty shampoo bottle in the shower, and the first draft of her latest manuscript left open on the large netscreen in her office. Well, her writing room. It didn't really resemble a conventional workspace; it was cluttered with books and various memorabilia from her travels. Meredith stalked through her home, barefoot, in her warm fleece pyjamas. She ran her fingers over the globe on top of her cabinet. They came away coated in a thick layer of dust.

 _Like silk before it rots._

The carton of milk in the fridge was fresh and half-full. She raised an eyebrow as she poured it into her cereal bowl. She distinctly remembered throwing out that milk before she left for the moon—it was beyond spoiled. As she crunched away on her breakfast, the laughter of children playing in the snow could be heard from outside, as well as the neighbours shovelling off their driveways. She figured she would have to clear away her own eventually.

The clock on the wall ticked away merrily. On the hands, there were little leaves that shook with each passing of the minute. They fell like dead moths. Meredith trudged to her office; she cleared away some of the papers from her desk and organized her final proofs. She would need to go and send these off to her publisher sometime today...she groaned. They always insisted on physical proofs. A trip to the post office didn't seem the least bit delightful in the poor weather.

She jerked to a sudden stop. Her hand hovered right above her keyboard. Those proofs. She had sent them off before she went to Artemisia. They shouldn't have...they shouldn't have still been there. Her heart racing, she grabbed the thick files and flipped through them. They were definitely the proofs that she had mailed from the post office. She had done it the same day that she had received that postcard, depicting the Artemisia Palace. The one egging her to _stay in 312_. She tossed away the proofs and nearly tore apart the room in search for that postcard, but it was nowhere to be found. Meredith couldn't remember where she had put it.

Angered, she picked up her port and established a comm link with her agent, the wisecracking Neil Barker. As was typical, he picked up with a laugh and said a suggestive, "Hello?"

"Neil, it's Meredith. Did you get the proofs I sent on Thursday?"

"Whoa, nice to hear from you too, Meredith. I take that your last date didn't go too well?"

Meredith rolled her eyes. "Mr. Barker, please. Have the proofs I sent arrived at the publishing house yet?"

"No, I'm afraid not." He clucked his tongue. "Since when do you hound our mail deliveries?"

"Unless I somehow had a second copy of these proofs that I wasn't aware of, I know that I've sent them. They should've been there yesterday." She could hear Neil coughing over the line. In response, she pursed her lips.

"When, exactly, did you send them?" Neil asked.

"The twelfth. Around three in the afternoon."

He laughed. "Meredith, today's the twelfth. And it's eleven in the morning."

"What?"

"Unless you can somehow time travel, I think you're imagining things," he chuckled. "You probably haven't even sent those proofs in the first place. You could do well with some more sleep."

Meredith whimpered, knotting her fingers in her hair. "But I...I..."

Breathless, she glanced at her netscreen. The date was displayed in the top right corner, where it had always been. _December 12th, Year 309. 11:17 AM._

"Oh," was all she managed to say.

"Are you alright?" Neil laughed again. "I think I'm going to let you go for now, so you can get yourself together...and send those proofs."

"No!" Meredith shouted. "Please...please don't."

There was an apprehensive silence. "What else do you need?"

Meredith let out a breath and sank down into her chair. She kept Neil on the line as she pulled up her travel history, every transaction and booking neatly organized in a list. Her last trip was three months ago, when she joined a friend for a getaway in Australia. There was no record of her reservation to Artemisia. She had spent a thousand univs on a flight to the domed city.

But not according to the computers. She wiped away some stray tears and took in a deep breath. Was she going _mad_?

 _It was a drunk's thought._

"I have...I have another idea for a book. I've already written out a loose outline; it's called _Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Hotels._ "

"Ooh," Neil drawled. "It's true that we haven't tapped into hotels yet."

"I swear, this book will be the best one yet." Meredith forced a grin. "The juiciest chapter will be all about my one night stay in the rooms of the Late Queen Levana."

That caught Neil's attention. "You mean the Grand Artemisia Hotel?! You stayed _there_?"

"In the legendary Suite 312. The _whole night._ "

Neil whistled. "I'll bet you have some real good stuff on that."

 _It's an evil fucking room._

She laughed uneasily. Yes, certainly, she did. Meredith had very vivid memories of the room, despite having never been there. Her nightmare, that horrible, _horrible_ hour, would be enough to write her bestseller. There was no need to add that she apparently hadn't set foot in Artemisia. "It's just pouring out of me."

"Well, less talking, more writing! I want to read this steamy book myself!" He cleared his throat. "And don't forget—"

"—those proofs, yes. I'll be mailing them today."

"Good. Be sure to keep yourself in good shape, Meredith. Thinking like that guarantees a one-way ticket to the loony bin."

Meredith smiled, this time in earnest. "Good day, Neil. Thank you for your time."

She hang up and brushed back her red curls. A chill ran down her spine. The room was quite cold; she then noticed that she had left the window open. "Oh, for the love of..."

There was a dusting of powdery snow, as well as a few stray leaves on the shelf beneath the sill. She blew away the frost and plucked up the leaves with the intent of flinging them outside. A sharp wind blew in her face. The walls seemed to groan, and the glacial cold bit at her skin. A hiss came from the window frame and Meredith barely had the time to jump back before the glass slammed shut with a terrific bang.

Her body crumpled by the desk. Her very breath had been knocked from her. Meredith's blood chilled as she shook what seemed like ice shards from her hair; she looked over her left hand, that had been exposed to the outside cold. No harm done. Every one of her fingers was straight and aligned. She shook her head.

No cuts.

No scrapes.

No stitches in her pinkie.

* * *

The post office was established in a squat little building on the end of the street. Meredith made her way there slowly, careful not to slip on any ice that littered her path. The road was buzzing with hovers coming from all directions—she found herself glad that she didn't decide to drive today. She needed some air to clear her head, and being stuck in traffic would've only fuelled her pent-up rage. Wrapped in her velvet coat and silk scarf, she willed herself to be warm. But despite her clothes and the three lattes she had consumed in the past hour, she couldn't seem to shake off the chills.

Her breath came out in little puffs and her red-tinted nose tickled as snowflakes landed on her skin. The door to the post office was covered in frost; it took strength to pry it open. She stepped inside and let out a sigh of delight at the hot air that hit her face. Finally warm and comfortable, she found it within herself to smile. However, no one else in the facility seemed to be in the smiling mood.

Meredith gulped and waved the blush from her cheeks. She deposited her stamped package in the appropriate slot, thanking the familiar staff member that sat behind the desk. The two had often gone out for coffee together once the work day was done. Meredith expected a warm greeting; instead, she was returned with a glare. That woman, whom Meredith remembered as being loud and jubilant, began unplugging the netscreen and other electrical equipment from the wall. Everything clanged together as she forced the equipment into a large blue bin.

Meredith opened her mouth to protest, but she quickly thought better of it and backed away. Wary and nervous, she walked over to her mailbox and unlocked the slot. She groped the inside of the cold compartment, searching for that postcard, but to no avail, she had no mail. The clock on the far wall ticked and tocked mercilessly, not unlike the one she had at home. Squinting, she attempted to make out the time.

 _3:12 PM._

"Are you looking for anything, Miss?"

She turned around. A gruff-looking man sulked behind a wall of glass. Behind him, Meredith could see piles of outgoing packages. "Have you seen a postcard lying around, maybe? It's blue, and it has a palace on it..."

He shook his head. "Nope. Now, if that's all, please leave. We're closing."

"Closing?!" Meredith glanced at the clock again. "But it's only three!"

"We're closing down. This town has no more need for a post office."

Her heart began to race again. Behind her, she saw some men shuffling about, taking down bulletin boards and signs. "I don't—"

She screamed. The man's face split into a terrifying grin, baring teeth that looked more like a wolf's than a human's. He held a sledgehammer in his clenched fists. Beads of sweat ran down his neck and the tendons in his arms bulged. It was then that all hell broke loose.

The sledgehammer passed through the glass, which instantly shattered in an explosion of white. Meredith fell to the floor—and it shook, oh how it shook, as people drove jackhammers into the walls. The ceiling began to crumble down around them, and Meredith was left staring at clouds and gold and those _goddamn cherubs_. They all flew around laughing. Dust fell in thick motes and a broken chandelier snapped down on a rusty chain. The hardwood flooring was ripped out, revealing soft flowered carpet splattered with blood. Large windows with tattered curtains appeared like gaping maws; screaming, begging, starving. In them was ghostly brick wall and crude writing that said:

 **BURN ME ALIVE!**

Meredith screamed.

 **BURN! THIS IS SIX, THIS IS _GODDAMN SIX!_**

The remnants of the portraits still cried. They laughed and laughed and laughed.

 **EVEN IF YOU LEAVE THIS ROOM, YOU WILL NEVER LEAVE THIS ROOM!**

The spinning stopped. The clamour ceased. All the post office staff had disappeared. There was nothing but dead silence and hot, thick air. She pried her sticky eyelids open. Cried. Gasped. Hacked the blood and soot from her raspy throat. She wasn't in her winter clothes, but in her soiled sweater and tattered pants. The bandage on her finger had been torn away and she nearly vomited at the sight of it. The hideous stitches, the blacked flesh, the smell of rot...

Her portscreen has still clenched in her other hand. From where she was on the floor, she could see the ravaged bed in the other room. The sheets and duvet lead in a trail to where Meredith lay, as if she had rolled out of them. Her chest heaved. Ugly sobs filled the air as she recorded herself once again.

" _I was out_."

* * *

 **10:45, 10:44, 10:43...**


	8. Part 8

**—10:41, 10:42, 10:43...**

* * *

She couldn't help the sobs that tore her way from her throat. "I was out...I WAS OUT!" She hacked up the dust that had gathered in her mouth. It came out bloody. "I was..."

A low rumble came from beneath her, and she looked down to see the ground shifting. Carpet peeled away, leaving a cold, hard floor below. She got onto her knees and clutched her portscreen to her chest.

"Miss Davis?" Someone called.

She jumped. Bile rose in her throat, and she was frozen, waiting in dread for what was to come. The voice rang out again. Meredith sank on all fours and crawled over to the source—she feared that she might get her head chopped off if she stood up to her full height. Her breath came out in ragged gasps. Her cheeks were soaked with blood and tears. In the middle of the demolished sitting-room, the echoes of the voice came from all directions. Meredith gasped. "Stop...please...stop," she whimpered, burying her head in her hands. But the room was not one to grant clemency; the voice began to shout instead.

Behind her, the door to the mini-bar creaked open. Her palms damp with sweat, she steadied herself against the wall and rose to her feet. The voice continued to babble on, and Meredith, locked in a trance, slowly approached it. She peered into the fridge, but instead of rows of drinks and sandwiches, she saw the hotel lobby. Diana Glampers stood by a pillar, no taller than Meredith's thumb, with a smug grin and a glass of _Red Tsuki_ in her hand. Fancy ass Lunars with their fancy ass wine.

"Do you believe me now, Miss Davis?" Glampers took a sip of her wine. Meredith, her hands shaking, gripped the edges of the fridge.

" _What do you want from me_?" She asked, her voice low and hoarse.

"Do you know why people are so afraid of this room?" Glampers continued. "Because..." She smiled, looking up into space, "humans have always, _always_ feared the prospect of _something_ after death. Where they'll end up, what they've done...in Suite 312, you get to see it first hand."

Meredith shivered. "You are a fucki—"

"Tut tut, Miss Davis. Do you think that you'll get anywhere with an attitude like that?"

"Oh, go—"

Glampers cut her off again with a sharp laugh. "And what about you? Do you know where you're going?"

Her face was nearly red. She held her breath, beads of sweat rolling down her forehead. "What. Do you want. From ME!" She roared, throwing in her hand. She wanted to grab Glampers and tear her in half, see the blood and guts spill from her broken body. "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!"

Her voice was shrill and thunderous as she threw herself at the fridge, shaking it and rattling it and tearing out all the shelves. The sandwiches and cans of soda fell to the floor, the wine bottles shattered, soaking her sleeves. Her screaming had become nothing more than incomprehensible noise; her face red and blotchy, her hair in knots, she continued to destroy the fridge, until she was left staring at its empty white back. Red wine splattered the sides. Glampers, as well as the hotel lobby, were nowhere to be found.

She spat onto the wall. "I want...MY DRINK!" She roared, cutting her hands on broken bottles. A lone flask of whiskey sat near the back. She giggled and brought it to her chest. Her fingers trembled as she peeled off the seal. The scent of spirits wafted through the air—her mouth watered. She brought the flask to her lips and downed a large mouthful. The wall was her only support as she drank the rest of the liquor.

"Oh...what do you want from me..." She fell to her knees, sobbing. The lights began to flicker on and off.

 _"Dottie?"_

Meredith gasped. The room was plunged into darkness.

 _"Are you there?"_

She fumbled about for the light switch, but she only managed to scrape her arms and knees on some broken glass. Nothing but pitch black filled her vision. She could barely feel herself breathe. Light, light, she needed—

"Gah!" She slammed against a hard wall—the force of the impact made her bite her tongue. She cried out in pain and swallowed her iron-tinged saliva. The lights came back on with a flash, and she was left staring at a tall door, with ridges and grooves and a brass doorknob tarnished with rust. Soft giggles could be heard through the wood.

Meredith panted. Her eyes narrowed, blood-shot and full of fire. Her sneering lips pressed together. "Open it," she whispered.

Some thumping. The door creaked open, and a little girl came crawling through. Her eyes were wide and erratic, her limbs shaking, her hair glued to her neck. The poor thing seemed scared out of her wits. "Dottie! I can't—" she paused and began hacking up blood, "I can't breathe!"

Meredith's heart thundered. "That's not...you're not Maggie."

"Dottie, _PLEASE_!"

"GET AWAY! YOU'RE NOT MAGGIE!"

The girl's body jerked closer to Meredith. Little Maggie cried, her eyes hazy and infected. The air was suddenly putrid, smelling of gas and regolith.

"I SAID _GET_ , YOU MAGGOT!"

The child fell into Meredith's arms, her bloody saliva staining the woman's shirt. The door had melted to the floor in a brown ooze. Maggie slowly relaxed, and the stench faded away. "Thank you," she gasped, curling up onto Meredith's lap. "The poison's gone."

Meredith sobbed.

Maggie looked up to her and sniffed. "Why aren't you hugging me, Dottie? Don't you...don't you love me anymore?"

Meredith broke. It was all too real...she looked like Maggie, spoke like Maggie, smelled like Maggie...a guttural cry of despair escaped her amongst the blood and mist. "Of course, I do..." She picked up the girl and held her to her chest, sobbing hysterically. "Oh, of course I do! How could you ever think otherwise?!"

Maggie wailed and buried her head in Meredith's bosom. "Don't let me go...don't let them take me..."

"No, no, they won't take you. They won't take you. I _promise_."

"And we can all be together? You, Albert, Mommy, Daddy..."

"Of course, we'll be together." Meredith couldn't stop crying. "I love you so much, Maggie, I love you, I love you, I lo—"

The girl's frantic movements had ceased. A sickening gurgle bubbled past her open mouth. Her little body sagged in Meredith's arms. Her eyes were staring blankly at her sister's. The lights dimmed, and the last bout of bitter laughter poured from the far wall. It was heartbreaking to hear.

Meredith's mouth bobbed open like a fish's. "No..." She cradled Maggie desperately. The giggles from the walls had stopped, leaving nothing but a deadly silence. "You can't take her again," she choked. Tears ran down the tip of her nose, painting Maggie's dead cheeks. Meredith hugged her to her chest. Her shoulders quaked and her chest heaved. Her voice was nothing but a pathetic whisper now. " _You can't_..."

Maggie's body suddenly dried up and fell apart. Her hair singed away, her skin became dust, and her skeleton crumbled. What little remained of the corpse slipped through Meredith's fingers and clattered to the floor. Meredith was left with her brittle arms empty and her face covered in soot. She could do nothing but gasp, tears flowing down her cheeks in an endless waterfall.

 _(What you've done, you see it firsthand...)_

"I...I'm so sorry..." Meredith cried, wiping off her filthy hands on her tattered sweater. "I tore them up. It's my fault."

A chorus of laughter echoed off the demolished walls. Her portscreen chimed. She glanced down to see that it was still recording, and she brought it up to her face. The camera painted the portrait of a distraught girl, a selfish woman, eyes wide and face covered in dust. Her hair was matted in various clumps around her head. She forced herself to stare at the ugly picture, hating what she had done, hating herself, hating the room...

 _(Mirrors have an uncanny way of telling the truth, don't they?)_

" _I tore my family apart,_ " she confessed to her reflection. Blood began to trickle from her nose, but she didn't make any effort to wipe it away. She only ended up looking more hideous. "I left them. I left my poor mother, my father who worked himself ragged to take care of me, and Albert, who you'll probably try to swallow whole once you're done with me," she sobbed. "If he wasn't just another illusion."

She wasn't even sure anymore.

"Did you do this to the rest of them?" She gestured to the demolished paintings, speaking to no one in particular. "They've committed far worse crimes than me, you know."

 _(They burn)_

She shook her head and gripped her port so hard that the spiderweb cracks spread over the entire screen. A thousand red-haired freaks stared back at her.

 _(We all burn down here)_

"Mom...Dad..." She crouched beneath the remains of the chandelier. "Albert...please, if you hear this, know that I'm sorry. Something here wants me dead. I can feel it coming. It won't be long now," she sighed, nearly in relief.

She crawled across the demolished floor, ignoring the piles of dead children and her waiting grave that had appeared against the wall. On the stone, someone had scrawled, HERE LIES MEREDITH ANNE DAVIS. SHE WILL BE GREATLY MISSED.

Levana's giant netscreen had not stopped the countdown. Now, only forty-five seconds remained until what she assumed was her doom. She let herself fall flat on the ground. It was over. No more fighting, no more room. It could have her.

Thirty seconds passed. Only fifteen more until the hour was up. She could hear screams rising up around her. The crackle of an inferno. The searing heat of flames.

 _Five. Four._

She let out a cry.

 _Three. Two._

The howling was nearly beautiful, she thought.

 _One._

 **00:00.**

* * *

The screams ceased immediately. Meredith stayed frozen in the fetal position. She waited, waited, waited, but there was nothing but the gentle ticking of a clock. She forced herself to sit up and found that her hair fell neatly around her shoulders. Her clothes were mint, clean, with the faint smell of her favourite detergent. Her hands were clean, and there was no trace of where her pinkie had been sliced off. She had never felt more rested, or more terrified.

She glanced around herself. The room had returned to its original state, a time capsule of twinkling beauty and luxury. The bed, the chandelier, the windows...everything was fixed and back in place. There were no bricks. No writing scrawled on anything. In the sitting-room, she could see the black-haired queen staring at her. To her utter despair and confusion, she saw that the netscreen had restarted the countdown, **57:56, 57:55...**

She stood up on her shaking legs. Behind her, the netscreen signalled an incoming comm. "Accept," she spat.

"We have never encountered one so stubborn as you, Miss Davis," the receptionist laughed.

"Fuck off," was Meredith's reply.

The netscreen flashed jovially, and the inhuman voice lilted. "You will never escape. This hour will repeat over and over and over until you perish."

Meredith let out a bitter laugh. "Why don't you just kill me now?"

"Everyone in the city of Artemisia enjoys free will, Miss Davis. The only one to take your life will be you." The false receptionist clucked her tongue. "Now, would you like to relive this hour again?"

A loud thump made Meredith cry out—she turned her head, her heart threatening to jump from her throat. A noose was hanging from the ceiling where there had previously been nothing. The rope swung slightly, inviting.

"Or would you like to take advantage of our early check out service?"

Meredith released a hot, strained breath. She stalked away from the netscreen, her hands held out in front of her. Everywhere she passed, another noose would be waiting—in the bathtub, in the closet, behind a dresser...she screamed as she saw herself jumping down from the ceiling, her neck wrapped in rope. The sickening snap of her own bones nearly made her retch.

She quickly turned around and met back with the screen. The false receptionist, _the room_ , had remained on the line. "Have you made your decision, Miss Davis?"

"No. Not your way," she hissed.

"I understand," was the room's reply.

Meredith reached out to end the comm, but obviously, the receptionist wasn't finished yet. "Oh, Miss Davis?"

She turned and glared. "Yes?"

"Your brother just sent us a memo; he should be here in five minutes. When he arrives, we'll be sending him straight up."

She smiled. "He's not involved. You can't have him." She looked up, a new fire in her eyes. "And you can't have me either. What can you really do to me?" Meredith put her hands on her hips. It was madness. "You're all just dead freaks trapped in the walls of a gross little room."

A moment of silence. "I don't understand."

"Of course you don't understand," Meredith hissed, pressing her lips to the screen's glass, as if she were about to kiss it. "None of you have ever been human. You will _never_ understand." She put a hand to her chest, in the hopes that she could calm her terrorized heart. "I'm done arguing with you."

Meredith could feel the wall behind the screen trembling. She pulled away, standing tall. Before her very eyes, the glass began to ripple, then melt away bit by bit. A silver liquid pooled at Meredith's feet, and she barely managed to avoid getting stuck in it. Her lip curled in disgust. What was left before her was a mirror, set in that tarnished silver frame with the overgrown vines and the crown. In the bottom scroll, the word _queen_ glowed in orange-red, as if ablaze. She observed her immaculate appearance, her rosy cheeks, the long gown that she was suddenly dressed in, the lace and ribbon headpiece that was placed on her head like a diadem. Her chest and sleeves were adorned with sweet bows, and it would've nearly been quaint if the ensemble wasn't entirely pitch black. She looked like she was on her way to a funeral.

Her _own_ funeral.

She smiled and gathered the fabric of her skirt in two fists. "Nice touch," she commended. "Now all I'm missing is a veil—"

She gasped as she felt cold fingers close around the tender flesh of her shoulder. She sucked in her breath and froze. She could feel someone breathing against her neck, but it was so _cold_. She couldn't help the shivers. "Please, let me go," she said.

A second hand placed itself on her other shoulder and turned her around. Meredith took in the sight of the veiled woman who stood before her, cold, stiff hands still on her shoulders. Something about her grip seemed desperate, but Meredith couldn't even make out a face, let alone an emotion, through the grey shroud. In an instant, she knew who this woman was—what she wanted, though, was beyond her. "Levana," said Meredith, trying to find any trace of eyes.

Levana's grip tightened. She said nothing. Meredith pursed her lips, fear clawing up her spine. With a shaking hand, her spindly fingers gripped the edge of Levana's veil, and she slowly began to raise it over the woman's head. Meredith felt those cold, dead hands releasing her shoulders with a gasp. " _Don't_ ," Levana croaked.

"It's okay," Meredith whispered. She let the veil fall to the floor. She felt no surprise, nor disgust at the sight of Levana's face—only a cold detachment, as if this was nothing out of the ordinary. She put a hand to Levana's scarred cheek. "Why are you here?" Meredith asked.

"I'm scared," Levana sobbed, and before long, Meredith's hand was soaked with what seemed like tears. "I'm always scared. They're here, around me, and they never stop calling me _ugly_ ," she managed to say through her cries.

"You're not ugly, just dead." Meredith cocked her head. "And I'm afraid that I can't help you."

Levana wrapped her arms around herself. "I want them to...to _stop_. I…"

Meredith wiped away the dead queen's tears, like a kind mother. "I'm sorry. I can't help you."

Levana lowered her head in surrender. "I know," she whispered.

Meredith let go and took a step back. She looked around, a sinking feeling in her stomach. Her gaze settled on her briefcase that sat neatly on the sofa. She managed a grin. "I've lived the life of a selfish woman," she admitted. Cautiously, she crept over to her things and rummaged through the bag until she got a hold of the little box of matches. "But I don't have to die like one. Like _you_ ," she spat in Levana's direction. "If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me."

"What are you doing?" Levana asked, her voice small and frail.

Meredith ignored her and rushed to the fridge. It had been restocked, and on the top shelf, just waiting for her, sat a bottle of vodka. She took it out and placed it on a glass table.

" _What are you doing_?" The queen repeated, angry now.

"You'll see." Meredith took to one of her spare shirts with a pair of scissors, and came away with a good chunk of torn fabric. She dipped the whole strip into the liquor. "I don't know if any of this is real," she whispered, sitting down on a nearby chair. She pulled out a match from the box and lit it. "I may not even be real. But this _fire_ ," she ran a finger through the flame; she felt nothing. "This fire has to be real."

She turned around to see that Levana had disappeared. The corners of her mouth twitched. Deep down, under all the matches, was another lone cigarette; Meredith must've forgotten about it. She shrugged and lit it, bringing it to her lips. Inhaling deeply on the smoke, like a long-lost friend, she gently set fire to the piece of cloth. She made sure to hold it as far away from herself as she could—the alcohol began to blaze, and a strong whiff of burning sulfur went into her head like a whiff of smelling salts, all with the bright flare of matchheads. And again, without so much as a single thought, she launched the waiting bomb right at the wall between the windows. She was knocked onto the ground by a blaring explosion, and before the flames could blaze up in front of her eyes, rendering the room once more unstable, Meredith saw it clearly, like one who has awakened from a nightmare only to find the nightmare all around them.

They were all burning down there.


	9. Part 9

"Please," Albert shouted, "please, get out of my way! I'm in a hurry!"

There was a large throng of people rushing out of the train, and Albert was forced to shove through the crowd in order to leave the station. He had not set foot in Artemisia since he was a student. He had forgotten how busy the ghostly white city usually was. The citizens were not eager to let Albert pass. Still, he managed to get through by forgetting all manners and simply pushing them out of his way.

The hotel loomed over him like a god. It was so sparkling, grand, beautiful...he could only think that something terrible was happening in there. It had been years since he had even heard his sister's voice, but the way she spoke on the comm—it was impossible that she faking it. It wasn't in her character to just call him up after so long and play such a cruel prank on him.

As he rushed into the courtyard, he was assaulted by the deafening sounds of alarms, sirens, and screams. The guests of the hotel were flooded with fear, although this is nothing compared to what Albert felt. Looking up, he could see a large amount of black smoke pouring from the third floor. Four windows had been blown away by what must've been a large explosion. Even from where he stood, he couldn't mistake the roaring flames of a bright fire coming from inside the room.

 _I'm in Suite 312_ , Meredith had told him. He was foolish to hope that this room wasn't on the third floor, that it wasn't the one bursting into flames.

An officer grabbed Albert by the arm, pulling him away from the disaster. "Sir, please, this way! We're evacuating!"

"My sister is in there! I have to go—"

"The rescue squadron is in there looking for the stranded! I need you to leave the grounds immediately!"

Albert tried to escape the officer's grip, but his thin technician's physique was no match for the man's trained body. He was outmatched and soon found himself led into the crowd. The palace gates kept them all at bay from the fire.

* * *

Rufus Dearborn ran down the hall in his full suit, mask on, fire extinguisher at the ready. His partners on the rescue team were close behind, although several of them stopped often to help out stragglers who couldn't seem to process the danger that they were in. As such, he was the first to reach the source of the explosion, the formerly-exquisite Suite 312. He was not familiar with net legends, so he did take the time to shiver at the fact that these rooms used to be Queen Levana's home. All he focused on was the task on-hand: rescue the guest trapped in the suite and escape the building as fast as he could.

Dearborn never remembered exactly what happened. He constructed a coherent enough story for the news columns and net cameras (he liked the idea of being a hero very much, and it certainly did no harm to his executive aspirations), and he clearly remembered seeing the woman on fire lunge out from behind the table, but after that everything was a blur. Thinking about it after the fact was like trying to reconstruct the things he had done during the vilest, darkest night of his life when he was so intoxicated that he could barely walk.

One thing he was sure of but didn't tell any of the reporters, because it made no sense: the burning woman's scream seemed to grow in volume, as if she were an audio file that was being turned up. She was right there in front of Dearborn, and the _pitch_ of the scream never changed, but the volume most certainly did. It assaulted his ears as soon as he'd entered the room through the unlocked front door. She was curled up beside a coffee table, lost amidst the flames. His reflexes sent him towards her and he pulled her limp body from the ashen debris that had kept her pinned to the ground.

Dearborn ran out the door as fast as his legs could take him. The adrenaline in his blood kept him from the fear that had latched itself to the very walls. The burning woman—"Even her hair was on fire, I swear to you," he told the reporters—suddenly jerked up and fell from his grip. She rebounded, staggered, and came to her knees. In response, he put his foot on the screaming woman's burning shoulder and pushed her over onto the hall carpet. He pulled out a fire blanket from his kit, wrapped her in it and forced her body round and round until the fire had been put out.

These things were blurred in his memory, but accessible. He was aware that the burning flames in the room seemed to be casting far too much light—a sweltering yellow-orange light that made him think of the sunsets that he often saw back home in Ecuador. The orange light that would normally bathe his house at dusk was like this... hot and strange, not really what you thought of as earthlight at all...

He dropped beside the burning woman who was now only the smoldering woman. When he did, he saw the skin on the left side of her neck had gone a smoky, bubbly black, and the lobe of his ear on that side had melted a little, all the way across a good half of her face. Her left eyelid was so burnt and swollen that it was sealed shut. Her lips seemed to be curling off of her teeth. "H-Help...it's so hot..."

He couldn't believe that she still had the ability to talk. "Don't worry Miss, I'm getting you out of here. Just hold on tight."

Dearborn looked up, and it seemed—this was crazy, but it seemed that through the door, a hell awaited him, the hot light of an empty place where things no man had ever seen might live. It was terrible, that light (and the low buzzing, like an electric clipper that was trying desperately to speak), but it was fascinating, too. He wanted to go into it. He wanted to see what was behind it.

Perhaps Meredith saved Dearborn's life, as well. Despite being half-burned, she had certainly been aware that Dearborn was getting up—as if Meredith no longer held any interest for him—and that his face was filled with the blazing, pulsing light coming out of 312. She remembered this better than Dearborn later did himself, but of course Rufe Dearborn had not been reduced to setting himself on fire in order to survive.

Meredith grabbed the cuff of Dearborn's fireproof pants. "Don't go in there," she said in a cracked, smoky voice. "You'll never come out."

Dearborn stopped, looking down at the ravaged, blistering face of the lady on the carpet.

 _"It's haunted,"_ Meredith croaked, and as if the words had been a talisman, the door of Suite 312 slammed furiously shut, cutting off the light, cutting off the terrible buzz that nearly, just barely, sounded like a human voice.

* * *

Aside from the thin line of scars by her cheekbones, there was no outward hint remaining of her disastrous stay in Suite 312. It had been three months since her last surgery. She didn't leave her house unless Albert escorted her. She couldn't shake off the irrational fear that people were staring at her, judging her, seeing how ugly she was. Before she went to Artemisia, she had never cared much for her appearance, but now it plagued her every waking moment. When she woke up, she had to reassure herself that she still looked normal by staring intently at herself in the mirror for a good twelve minutes.

There was an interesting picture of Meredith Davis in the newest edition of _Treating The Burn Victim._ Although her ravaged face prevented anyone who saw it from recognizing her, she couldn't shake off the feeling of merciless fire on her skin. At least she didn't remember what exactly had done this to her. She liked to tell herself that she had just gotten incredibly drunk and somehow got herself in a very bad accident.

Sometimes she had nightmares, quite often, in fact (almost every goddamn _night_ ), but she rarely remembered them when she woke up. A sense that things were rounding off at the corners, mostly—melting the way the corners of her portscreen had melted. Its life had been drained from it, along with all of her pictures that she had stored on it. She was quick to purchase a new one; her daily habit was to take long walks on the local beach, recording the sounds of the ocean to help her fall asleep later at night.

The closest she had ever come to articulating what she did remember about her seventy-odd ( _very_ odd) minutes in 312 was on one of those walks. "It was never human," she told the incoming water in a choked, halting voice. Sand buried itself between her toes. "Ghosts...at least ghosts were once human. The thing in the wall, though... that thing..."

Time might improve things, she could and did hope for that. Time might ease her fear, as it might fade the scars on her face. In the meantime, though, she slept with the lights on in her bedroom, so she would know at once where she was when she woke up from the bad dreams. She also had all of the netscreens taken out of her house; somehow, subconsciously, she was deathly afraid of accidentally accepting a strange comm and hearing a buzzing, inhuman voice spit, **_"This is nine! Nine! We have killed your friends! Every friend is now dead!"_**

Every once in a while, she would see her. A frail hand here, a wisp of sheer fabric there. Meredith did not know who this was, and she jumped whenever she caught the slightest glimpse. Most of the time, she would see her in the mirror, staring right back at her...how Meredith knew this, she wasn't sure. She could just feel it.

Beneath the silk veil, spun like cobwebs, the lady would look at her with a sadness that threatened to crack the glass. And every time, Meredith would simply whisper, "I can't help you."

 **—END—**


End file.
